I just finished reading an interesting - or at least amusing - OpEd piece on Senator Biden and thought I'd stop by to see what RPeeps are saying about the man who might be one breath away from the Presidency of the US. How disappointing to find that while Obama, McCain and of course Palin have their own threads - very active threads at that - Biden has nada, zilch, zero. So I am doing my part to rectify the situation.
As much as it is fun to talk about Palin's VPncy - what impact does it have on the McCain platform? While there seems to be quite a bit of disagreement in the thread dedicated to her nomination, I don't know what there is to disagree about. She has no experience. She has no platform of her own. She is as clean of a slate as you can find in politics. I honestly don't see her impacting a McCain Presidency in any major way. At least not in the first few years.
On the other hand, Obama picked Biden to balance out the Democratic ticket. To add some experience to a mostly visionary campaign. (I don't mean that as a slight. Is there anyone who thinks Obama isn't running a campaign with an emphasis on vision? Please, anyone who takes issue with that statement is arguing for the sake of hearing themselves think.) I believe Biden will have a real impact on an Obama Presidency. His role - as I see it - will be to help Obama flesh out his vision and put it into practice. Biden's knowledge, experience, and insight will steer Obama through the difficult task of turning hope into reality.
So why isn't there a thread about him? Why are there no heated debates?
I think you are absolutely right, Edie, that there should be as much focus upon Joe Biden as Obama's selection as VP as there is upon Sarah Palin as McCain's selection as VP. But, here's the thing: That focus on these VP candidates should be on the periphery of the analysis of the tickets. The one thing I think everyone can agree upon is that Palin has been front-and-center for a month now. That is unprecedented. Which way that will cut remains to be seen. I am skeptical that McCain can win if the focus remains upon Palin — and, as I've said previously, I shudder to think that he might win because the focus remains upon Palin. And that shuddering of mine is because the focus upon her seems to be based largely upon irrelevant factors. Of course, the GOP/McCain backers cannot have it both ways — or at least should not be able to have it both ways. They can't keep her in the focus because it is helping the ticket, yet at the same time complain that she is being unfairly scrutinized and criticised. Or can they? Well, that's a different story, for a different post.
I agree with you that she essentially presents a clean slate — which makes her, in relative terms, an unknown. Biden, after 35 years in the Senate and a couple runs for the presidency, is a known commodity, gaffs and all. So, naturally, the vetting is going to be more aimed at her than at him.
Here is my point ( you were wondering if I would get to one — we shall see ). I believe the question is whether — right now — one would vote for Palin for President over Biden. That is the No. 1 consideration in evaluating a VP candidate. As you say, and I agree, Palin is far less likely to have as much impact in a McCain administration as Biden would have in an Obama administration. Speculation, I know, but I agree with your speculation on that. So, back to the big question. If we agree that she is much more of an unknown than Biden, we also would have to agree that she is more of a gamble. So, then the question becomes, Is what she brings to the table worth the gamble? As I've said before to you and a few others, I'm not interested in whether she can be groomed (no pun intended) to be a viable candidate for President 4 or 8 years down the road. In my mind, the VP is not an apprenticeship — again, back to the big question.
I really think she was chosen solely by McCain for strategic purposes related entirely to winning the campaign. Now, I do think he likes her and has some measure of respect for her, but, like you, I don't think she really will have a major impact within his administration. Now, McCain makes a big deal —as he should — about his having taken an unpopular stance on the Iraq war, saying that he would rather lose an election than a war. The whole putting-the-country-first thing. Well, I'm not so sure he did that here in his selection of a VP. The word is that he wanted to pick Lieberman or Ridge, and fell back to Palin.
Do you think he put the country first by picking Palin for VP or did he put winning the election first?
So I went back to the beginning of this thread for S & G's and found this from Sept 25, 2008.
How interesting. Fast forward to today, reverse situations and substitute Harris for Palin ...
Especially after they further lessened EPA regulation. Biden's vision of the wall writing is finally improving ...
We all know McConnell will do it the instant GOP gains majority in Congress.
New York Post. Thank heavens somebody owns this story. âDespite acknowledging that the material on the laptop showed that Hunter was âtrading on his Âfatherâs name to make a lot of money,â as CNN White House correspondent John Harwood put it, both the Washington Post and CNN were at pains to absolve Joe Biden of any involvement in the scheme. âThere is zero evidence that Vice President Biden, or President Biden, has done anything wrong in connection with what Hunter Biden has done,â Harwood saidâ¦.. the Washington Post curiously left out crucial facts in two detailed stories about the laptop on Tuesday that totaled a hefty near 7,000 words. the $6 million CEFC wired into the business bank account of trusted Biden family friend Rob Walker, a former Clinton administration official whose wife, Betsy Massey Walker, had been Jill Bidenâs assistant when she was second lady. That money was payment for work done by Hunter and his business partners during the last two years of Joe Bidenâs vice presidency in countries from Romania to Russia, using the Biden name to open doors and find acquisitions for CEFC. Nor does the Washington Post mention the company SinoHawk Holdings, which was set up on May 15, 2017, for a joint venture between CEFC and Hunter and his business partners. This was the deal for which Joe Biden was to get a 10% cut, as cited in an infamous 2017 email on the laptop, â10 held by H for the big guy.â Hunterâs former business partner, the CEO of SinoHawk, Tony Bobulinski, has publicly said that Joe Biden is the âbig guy.â But the Washington Post curiously does not mention Bobulinski, even though his name is all over the emails and documents on the laptop relating to CEFC, and even though the naval veteran held a press conference spilling the beans on the Bidens in October 2020. It does not mention that Bobulinski met Joe Biden twice in 2017, to be vetted as CEO of SinoHawk.â ⢠A cursory search on Betsy Massey Walker turns up nothing. I would have expected her to be an Ambassador or something. Oh well.
WASHINGTON, D.C.âIn a tense press conference Monday, Press Secretary Jen Psaki faced pointed questions about several Biden misstatements that led to chaos during his trip overseas. Psaki quickly reassured the gathered press that Biden doesn't speak for the President of the United States.
"The President has clearly said, and we agree, that Joe Biden does not speak for this administration," said Psaki to the confused reporters. "Nothing said by Biden should be misconstrued to reflect the official foreign policy of the President. This administration has been clear from the beginning, that we have always been clear about what we have been clear about, clearly."
"But Jen!" said a feisty Peter Doocy, "Don't you think these inconsistent statements could cause World War III and unleash CRT on our kids all at once? Why did Biden have to walk back his statements?"
"We would like to walk back the statement that we have ever walked back any statements," said a frustrated Psaki. "But if you find any statements that we have walked back let me know and we'll circle back later to walk back our walk-back."
Sources say Biden is now in his basement on tranquilizers until the administration can clarify what statements need to be walked back.
Well if he was posting his material to bring other people's thinking into view, then y'all gave him a bum rap.
I used to watch the 700 Club just to be aware and up to date on what those people were thinking. Not because I agree with them, and I basically did not, but because I wanted to hear them first hand and figure out for myself what they were about and not have some pundit tell me what to think about their POV. I try to do that with other groups, too. You / we need to know what other's are thinking even if we disagree just to step away from our own little echo chambers and news feeds for a different reference point that does have an impact on events regardless of how we feel about the subject matter. Intellectual isolation is never a good thing.
Y'all shot the messenger and missed the message, as usually happens around here.
When the message is coming from a tainted source (Russian propaganda site) doesn't that also compromise the messenger? I would think so. At worst it makes them complicit in trying to spread propaganda... and at best it makes them an ignorant tool of the source.
I can listen to Trump complain about the election being stolen from him from now until the end of time without giving it any credence since he and his cronies have never been able to prove it. You can send me however many messengers you like spouting that lie (the Trump clan, Mike Lindell) I won't shoot them... but I will dismiss them.
Send me your flat-earthers and I won't waste my time listening to them either... life is too short to spend time on nonsense.
That was excellent, though I am not quite sure how this ties in with unbounded tolerance for people espousing conspiracy theories, particularly when those theories can have demonstrably bad consequences, such as support for Putin's war of choice or voting for wannabe autocrats.
I generally think everyone here is indeed open-minded and willing to have their beliefs challenged, provided the reasoning behind the challenge is similarly open-minded and well-founded. It's one of the reasons I've been here so long.
Location: Perched on the precipice of the cauldron of truth
Posted:
Mar 28, 2022 - 6:56pm
Lazy8 wrote:
If you can actually define a term like NWO (I assume that means new world order) we can discuss whether there is any such thing or not. While I hear it complained about often I never see a definition, just a list of (generally fictitious, often massively ignorant) grievances. So go ahead: define this...thing. Concept. Conspiracy. Whatever. Just be aware that you get to prove it exists/has the characteristics you claim because no one can prove a negative.
I was thinking this as well. Will await the response(s). I am on record here as stating the same/similar about the existence of the âDeep State.â
We're so far off topic here that normally I'd just shake my head and marvel at the human mind's ability to distort its view of the world to the notions it's fond of, but...
...screw it. I'm going to go walk some dogs before it gets dark and marvel at the human mind's ability to distort its view of the world to the notions it's fond of.
On April 12, 1633, chief inquisitor Father Vincenzo Maculani da Firenzuola, appointed by Pope Urban VIII, begins the inquisition of physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei. Galileo was ordered to turn himself in to the Holy Office to begin trial for holding the belief that the Earth revolves around the sun, which was deemed heretical by the Catholic Church. Standard practice demanded that the accused be imprisoned and secluded during the trial.
We're so far off topic here that normally I'd just shake my head and marvel at the human mind's ability to distort its view of the world to the notions it's fond of, but...
...screw it. I'm going to go walk some dogs before it gets dark and marvel at the human mind's ability to distort its view of the world to the notions it's fond of.
Your history is a bit wobbly here. OK, it's crap. Couldn't find a single reference for anyone being punished for saying the earth is round. That doesn't mean it never happened (can't prove a negative!) but the burden of proof on that is on you.
What matters here is that there can be many claims about what is true, but there is an actual underlying truth. You're welcome to question anything but realize that those questions often have actual answers. Answers that can be verified.
What exactly does "legitimate" mean in this context? A question in good faith is always honest. It's a request to relieve ignorance, and we there is no higher authority on what you know (or don't, or don't understand) than you.
And no one is stopping you from asking questions. No one is stopping you from spouting bullshit. Calling you on it does not oppress you, it can only silence you out of shame. And after four years in office you're still a Trump supporter so really how likely is that?
If you can actually define a term like NWO (I assume that means new world order) we can discuss whether there is any such thing or not. While I hear it complained about often I never see a definition, just a list of (generally fictitious, often massively ignorant) grievances. So go ahead: define this...thing. Concept. Conspiracy. Whatever. Just be aware that you get to prove it exists/has the characteristics you claim because no one can prove a negative.
Hunter Biden's laptop is the same physical object it always was, the stories about it have changed. And no, the NYT did not publish a mea culpa (means "my fault" in Latin)âthey just sort of admitted that the Post's story about it wasn't Russian disinformation. They have zero interest in exposing their own bias or investigating any implications of its contents, or in apologizing for their part in covering the story up.
And what looks to you like a conspiracy, a coordinated plan to suppress the story, is something far more dangerous: consensus. Conspiracies have conspirators. They can be caught, exposed, and ridiculed...and they grow old and die. With them dies the conspiracy. A consensus is far more durable. It can last generations.
There are still people who believe the moon landings were faked 50 years on. William Kaysing, the dude usually credited with starting that hoax, is long deadâbut there are fresh adherents to his story every day.* You can still buy freshly-printed copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, even tho the people who first pitched the thing have been dead over a century. It doesn't take a cabal of active conspirators to keep an idea alive, it just takes people willing to fall for a story.
And the people who run the NYT (and Facebook and Twitter and most of the news media) had developed a consensus: any story brought forth by Rudy Giulliani that cast the candidate they were pulling for in an unfavorable light was probably fake. And they had ample reason to be suspicious; add a few anonymous quotes from someone in an intelligence agency (or someone adjacent to an intelligence agency, or someone who used to work for one and is now a consultant who will tell them what they want to know and who swears it's true because he knows a guy) and a lazy reporter has a story. And everybody who doesn't have a better source (which is everybody, because nobody really has a source) just follows along, assuming that the NYT just beat them to it.
As for Hunter Biden's laptop being some sort of factual kryptonite that would have reversed the 2020 election...dream on. It doesn't tell us anything we didn't already have ample evidence for. It isn't going to change anyone's mind about who they voted for. After all, Trump had two sons every bit as sleazy as Hunter Biden, involved in just as many sleazy schemes. It does not magically make Donald F#cking Trump a man of upstanding character or honesty or magically make his record better.
On April 12, 1633, chief inquisitor Father Vincenzo Maculani da Firenzuola, appointed by Pope Urban VIII, begins the inquisition of physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei. Galileo was ordered to turn himself in to the Holy Office to begin trial for holding the belief that the Earth revolves around the sun, which was deemed heretical by the Catholic Church. Standard practice demanded that the accused be imprisoned and secluded during the trial.
There are two sides to the story regarding the earth being round or flat. Only in the past 500 or so years in the long / short history of humankind was the earth determined to be round. Before then it was officially flat and anyone who thought otherwise publicly was considered a blasphemer with the appropriate penalties of imprisonment, torture and even death. And this is with a physical thing.
There usually is at least two perspectives on nearly everything and until proven otherwise, they are both legitimate in their own rights. We evolve and expand or understanding of things with the very question, what if? Without asking that question, we stagnate and stop evolving and only by pure chance or accident do we make new discoveries. To stop all
conversations that start with what if is a disservice to the public interest. The plausible is worthy of discussion and conjecture. The most recent example of this would be the NWO.
The NWO, long denied as nothing more than a paranoid delusion of extreme conspiracy theorists is now out in the open, acknowledged and being put into action. The turnaround time between a CT and reality has gone from 10 years to a matter of months.
Hunter Biden's laptop has gone from a Russian disinformation CT to reality since the election when one of the official arbiters of truth, the NYT, has finally come out and issued a mea culpa. I was dissed here for thinking and saying it was real. Too bad it was willfully suppressed by the fact checkers in order to affect the results of an election, but it did happen that way. Lazy8 posted the mea culpa and everyone just ignored it as if it doesn't matter. Same as right now ...
Lastly, the Biden enterprise has survived so far by maintaining the policy and cover of plausibledeniability. Which in the case of Hunter's laptop, it was Russian disinformation. That plausibility was the result of conditioning by the media and fact checkers, et al.
Your history is a bit wobbly here. OK, it's crap. Couldn't find a single reference for anyone being punished for saying the earth is round. That doesn't mean it never happened (can't prove a negative!) but the burden of proof on that is on you.
What matters here is that there can be many claims about what is true, but there is an actual underlying truth. You're welcome to question anything but realize that those questions often have actual answers. Answers that can be verified.
What exactly does "legitimate" mean in this context? A question in good faith is always honest. It's a request to relieve ignorance, and we there is no higher authority on what you know (or don't, or don't understand) than you.
And no one is stopping you from asking questions. No one is stopping you from spouting bullshit. Calling you on it does not oppress you, it can only silence you out of shame. And after four years in office you're still a Trump supporter so really how likely is that?
If you can actually define a term like NWO (I assume that means new world order) we can discuss whether there is any such thing or not. While I hear it complained about often I never see a definition, just a list of (generally fictitious, often massively ignorant) grievances. So go ahead: define this...thing. Concept. Conspiracy. Whatever. Just be aware that you get to prove it exists/has the characteristics you claim because no one can prove a negative.
Hunter Biden's laptop is the same physical object it always was, the stories about it have changed. And no, the NYT did not publish a mea culpa (means "my fault" in Latin)—they just sort of admitted that the Post's story about it wasn't Russian disinformation. They have zero interest in exposing their own bias or investigating any implications of its contents, or in apologizing for their part in covering the story up.
And what looks to you like a conspiracy, a coordinated plan to suppress the story, is something far more dangerous: consensus. Conspiracies have conspirators. They can be caught, exposed, and ridiculed...and they grow old and die. With them dies the conspiracy. A consensus is far more durable. It can last generations.
There are still people who believe the moon landings were faked 50 years on. William Kaysing, the dude usually credited with starting that hoax, is long dead—but there are fresh adherents to his story every day.* You can still buy freshly-printed copies of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, even tho the people who first pitched the thing have been dead over a century. It doesn't take a cabal of active conspirators to keep an idea alive, it just takes people willing to fall for a story.
And the people who run the NYT (and Facebook and Twitter and most of the news media) had developed a consensus: any story brought forth by Rudy Giulliani that cast the candidate they were pulling for in an unfavorable light was probably fake. And they had ample reason to be suspicious; add a few anonymous quotes from someone in an intelligence agency (or someone adjacent to an intelligence agency, or someone who used to work for one and is now a consultant who will tell them what they want to know and who swears it's true because he knows a guy) and a lazy reporter has a story. And everybody who doesn't have a better source (which is everybody, because nobody really has a source) just follows along, assuming that the NYT just beat them to it.
As for Hunter Biden's laptop being some sort of factual kryptonite that would have reversed the 2020 election...dream on. It doesn't tell us anything we didn't already have ample evidence for. It isn't going to change anyone's mind about who they voted for. After all, Trump had two sons every bit as sleazy as Hunter Biden, involved in just as many sleazy schemes. It does not magically make Donald F#cking Trump a man of upstanding character or honesty or magically make his record better.
"For God's sake, this man cannot remain in power"
— President Biden
(Reuters) "The Kremlin said on Monday that Biden's remark that Vladimir Putin 'cannot remain in power' was a cause for alarm, a guarded response to the first public call from the United States for an end to Putin's 22-year rule."
Note that this is the FIRST time the Kremlin has admitted to being alarmed in ANY fashion since starting this war. Or before, actually.
Trump sure as hell didn't alarm Putin.
But Biden damn well did.
And isn't this what Republicans — and Americans in general according to alleged recent polls — want?
Don't we want Russian leaders alarmed at our resolve? Is that exactly what Biden's critics have been demanding?
Yeah.
Can't wait to see how Tucker Carlson and GOP spin this into Putin being the victim here and how Biden is "weak."
âI was expressing the moral outrage I felt toward this man,â Mr. Biden told reporters,
rejecting criticism that he misspoke. He said no one should have thought
his comments were meant to be calling for Mr. Putinâs ouster.
âItâs ridiculous,â he said, clearly irritated at the questions during an
event in which he unveiled his budget. âNobody believes I was talking
about taking down Putin. Nobody believes that.â
Plausible is a higher standard than possible. From my experiences, advocates for a âconspiracy theoryâ often are arguing that it is possible. And they then often insist that those in opposition prove that it is not possible. The burden of proof should not shift at that point. This is not the same as a discussion over which of 2 plausible explanations one believes should hold sway.
Non-believer: PROVE the Existence of God!
Inquisition: No, YOU PROVE that God doesn't Exist!!
First one to PROVE THE UNPROVABLE wins!!
Location: Perched on the precipice of the cauldron of truth
Posted:
Mar 28, 2022 - 11:39am
kurtster wrote:
. . .
There usually is at least two perspectives on nearly everything and until proven otherwise, they are both legitimate in their own rights. We evolve and expand or understanding of things with the very question, what if ? Without asking that question, we stagnate and stop evolving and only by pure chance or accident do we make new discoveries. To stop all conversations that start with what if is a disservice to the public interest. The plausible is worthy of discussion and conjecture. The most recent example of this would be the NWO.
. . .
Plausible is a higher standard than possible. From my experiences, advocates for a âconspiracy theoryâ often are arguing that it is possible. And they then often insist that those in opposition prove that it is not possible. The burden of proof should not shift at that point. This is not the same as a discussion over which of 2 plausible explanations one believes should hold sway.
